Dell Chromebook 11.6" 3100 2021, Celeron N4000, 4GB, 16GB SSD, Black

A $96 Chromebook that's perfect for one tab and a prayer. If you need more than Gmail and Google Docs, keep walking.

The Celeron N4000 sits at the absolute bottom of our CPU rankings, and you'll feel it the second you open more than five tabs. But here's the surprise: for a single tab of Gmail, Docs, or a YouTube video at 480p, it's actually fine. The 4GB of RAM is the real bottleneck. ChromeOS eats that up fast. Our database shows this thing is dead last for CPU and RAM, but the integrated Intel HD Graphics somehow lands in the middle of the pack, which is like winning a footrace against people in wheelchairs.

Against a MacBook Pro or Surface Laptop, this is a toy. But that's not the fight it's in. The real competition is other refurbished Chromebooks and cheap Windows laptops. A Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 will run circles around this for real work, but it costs three to four times as much. The HP EliteBook 845 G7 is a better long-term buy if you can stretch your budget. For $96, the 3100 wins on price alone, but you're trading away everything else.

At $96, this is a no-brainer if you need a disposable laptop for a kid, a kiosk, or a travel beater. You're getting a working Chromebook for less than a nice dinner for two. Just don't expect it to replace your main machine. The 100th percentile affordability score isn't marketing fluff, it's the only reason this thing exists.

The Dell Chromebook 3100 is a $96 refurb that punches way above its price tag for basic tasks. It's a 1.29kg plastic brick with a Celeron N4000, 4GB of RAM, and a 16GB SSD, but ChromeOS makes that feel less painful than it sounds. The one thing to know: this is a web browsing and Google Docs machine, nothing more.

If you're looking for a laptop to edit photos, run spreadsheets, or do any real multitasking, this isn't it. Go grab a used Lenovo IdeaPad or HP EliteBook instead. You'll spend more, but you won't want to throw it out a window by week two.

Buy it if you need the cheapest possible Chromebook for light browsing and don't care about speed, storage, or screen quality. Skip it if you plan to do anything beyond one or two tabs at a time. It's a great spare laptop, a terrible primary one.